The reappointment of Zhou Xiaochuan as China’s central banker signals that the country’s Communist Party leaders are likely to embrace at least some market-oriented reforms in an economic plan due to be released at a meeting of senior party officials scheduled to begin on Saturday. [WSJ]

President Barack Obama faces growing questions over why he isn’t running government as efficiently as he ran his two highly successful presidential campaigns, and some point to management lapses: “Initiatives that leaned heavily on updating technology, consumer-friendly interaction and trimming inefficiencies rarely got top billing at the White House.” [Los Angeles Times]

This week marks the 34th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and Suzanne Maloney (@MaloneySuzanne) writes that the hostage crisis that ensued “remains the central episode in the bilateral estrangement, perhaps even more powerful in the American psyche than in Iran,” where it is marked annually by large demonstrations. [Brookings Institution]

Nicholas Lehman profiles Mary Jo White, the former prosecutor (and fan of baseball, football and horse racing, in that order) who now chairs the Securities and Exchange Commission. He wonders if she believes the only real problem at the agency has been lax enforcement as opposed to regulation of increasingly powerful firms and complex markets. [New Yorker]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accuses both Republicans and the press of failing to do more to point out Obamacare’s laws before it became law: “I think we didn’t do our job as an opposition party and the press didn’t do its job,” Gingrich said. [Politico]

Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner jailed for taking $165,000 in free renovations from a construction company, says prison time showed him the folly of mandatory minimum sentences. “Anybody…think that you can take these young black men out of Baltimore and D.C., give them a ten-year sentence for five grams of cocaine, and then believe that they’re going to return to society a better person ten years from now, when you give them no life improvement skills, when you give them no real rehabilitation?” he says. [Today]

Coal country representatives are quick to blame the White House for the industry’s decline, but improved technology and geological issues have been evaporating mining jobs in the region long before President Obama took office, write Patrick Reis (@Patrick_C_Reis) and Stephanie Stamm (@sestamm). [National Journal]

The Supreme Court, in considering a case about appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, should seize the opportunity to ease the partisan gridlock that such appointments provoke by restoring the president’s power to fill vital vacancies, writes Pamela Karlan. “It should consider ways to lower the temperature, rather than further enflaming our already heated politics.” [Boston Review]

Global foreign direct investment declined 28% to $256 billion in the second quarter after two consecutive quarters of increase, marking a return to the steady downward trend that began in 2012. Global FDI flows for the first half of 2013 were down 16% compared with the first half of 2012. [OECD]

In South Carolina, where a ban on same-sex marriage was approved by 78% of voters in 2006, some 52% of those surveyed in a new poll now say they oppose same-sex marriage. [The State]

Takoma Park, Md., lowered the voting age to 16, the first community in the nation to do so, according to the Washington Post. [Washington Post]

There are 21.2 million living U.S. military veterans; 9.6 million of them are over 65 and 1.8 million are younger than 35. [Census]

Some 40% of people who get their news from Twitter have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 30% of Facebook news consumers and 29% of the general population. [Pew Research Journalism Project]

Fox is reported to be asking $4 million for a 30-second Super Bowl ad in 2014. [Business Insider]

Thanks to its FedEx hub, Memphis is the world’s second-busiest airport by cargo volume after Hong Kong. [Economist]

Eighty-seven percent of Americans say they’re satisfied with their safety from physical harm or violence,up from 78% in 1998. In contrast, 63% say they’re satisfied with “the future facing you and your family, down from 76% in 1998. [Gallup]

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.